In the wake of a critical state evaluation of the Los Angeles County jail hospital, top jail medical officials said they are working to improve health care for ailing inmates and to boost staffing so they can obtain a state license for the facility. William Kern, director of medical services for the jail, acknowledged that state and county health officials had identified some legitimate problems with the jail's health care services.

In the wake of a critical state evaluation of the Los Angeles County jail hospital, top jail medical officials said they are working to improve health care for ailing inmates and to boost staffing so they can obtain a state license for the facility. William Kern, director of medical services for the jail, acknowledged that state and county health officials had identified some legitimate problems with the jail's health care services.

A woman whose husband died after being strapped to a cot for six days in the Los Angeles County Jail received a $120,000 damage payment from the county, and will receive $600 a month for the rest of her life beginning in October, 1992, according to a settlement agreement released Tuesday. The agreement, which detailed the settlement for a lawsuit filed by Joyce Amiri, was previously withheld by county officials. The document was released Tuesday in response to a formal request by The Times.

Los Angeles County will provide a lifetime pension to the widow of a man who died from a blood clot after he was strapped to a cot in the County Jail psychiatric ward for six days, the widow's attorney said Friday. Carl Bruaw, a 49-year-old Northridge real estate agent serving a one-year sentence for misdemeanor assault, suffered a fatal blood clot in a lung July 3, 1989, after spending six days in restraints binding his wrists and ankles.

State and county health authorities are investigating the use of restraints in the Los Angeles County Jail infirmary following the death of a man who was strapped to a cot by the jail medical staff for six days. Carl Bruaw, 49, a general contractor and real estate broker serving a one-year sentence for misdemeanor assault, was pronounced dead on arrival at County-USC Medical Center after he was taken from the infirmary on July 3.

Sam Paz proved once again last week why he'll be a great federal judge. With his help, the parents of Arturo (Smokey) Jimenez got a $450,000 out-of-court settlement resulting from a 1991 wrongful death suit they filed after a sheriff's deputy fatally shot their 19-year-old son in the Ramona Gardens housing project in Lincoln Heights.

State investigators have determined that the Los Angeles County Jail infirmary, the largest in California, has not followed acceptable medical practices for the use of physical restraints on mentally ill patients. The state Department of Health Services also reported to the county in a letter earlier this month that the infirmary failed to meet minimum hospital standards in 11 other areas of patient care.

An attorney representing the county has agreed to recommend approval of a $1-million settlement, payable over the next 30 years, to a man whose right leg had to be amputated after he was held in restraints for eight days at Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail. Antonio Mendoza, 39, of Sun Valley, was in the jail on an eight-day sentence for drunk driving when the 1993 incident occurred.

The largest mental institution in the United States rises from a bleak industrial sector of downtown Los Angeles, a maze of concrete walls and steel bars where more than 3,000 people with mental illnesses are crowded into dimly lit cells. The "mental institution" is, in fact, Los Angeles County Jail.